Disclaimer: Must we go through this? Oh, okay, but we most of us already knew that Dragonball Z and its many characters is owned by Akira Toriyama, Toei, and other people with more money than me. I only own the original characters, which really won't be that many.

Chapter Two: Loss and Gain

Something was wrong with Juuhachi-gou. As strong as their bond was due to them being twins, Juunana-gou was quite sure of it. While he had always been the more sadistic one between them, his sister's joy in killing and just causing mayhem in general normally rivalled his own. Lately, however, whenever they went out on a rampage, she always seemed uncharacteristically subdued. Like a short while ago, for example, when they were attacking what was supposed to have been a hidden kingdom and its inhabitants. He had noticed again that his sister wasn't taking the usual pleasure she did out of their handiwork.

Now that he thought about it, her odd behavior actually started right after their encounter with Son Gohan and the unknown kid. That time when Juuhachi-gou had actually stopped from blasting the boy's brains out for spitting on him, he had been pretty annoyed. But that happened a year ago, and during that time the black-haired Jinzouningen had come to perfectly understand his sibling's decision that day. As much fun as killing the humans were, at the same time it could become quite boring since there wasn't many who could give them even a half-decent challenge; it was the reason why they still kept Gohan alive to this day. Nonetheless, ever since that day in Nicky Town, Juuhachi-gou had become both very quiet and always seemed lost in thought; basically, she all she did now was sulked. He had never bothered to ask her about it before because he assumed she would've been over it by this point.

Just what was making her look so damn seriously contemplative when it was such a nice day for death and destruction?

Right now, the two watched from a nearby hill as their latest conquest burned to the ground, along with all of its dead residents. At least Juunana-gou was. A few feet away from him, Juuhachi-gou sat on a boulder, still as a statue and arms crossed as usual. She seemed to staring down at the burning village as well, but the crease in her pale eyebrows told Juunana she was lost in thought again. He frowned.

It was time to get to the bottom of this.

"You're hiding something," Juunana-gou said.

The furrow in Juuhachi-gou's brows deepened a bit, as she looked askance at her brother out the corner of her eye.

"What are you talking about, Juunana-gou?" she asked. "I'm not hiding anything."

"Stop lying to me!" Juunana-gou accused, beginning to lose his patience.

Juuhachi-gou glared frostily at him. "Just because you're my brother doesn't mean you have to know everything about me! So drop it!"

Another thing that had become evident of his sister as of late was that she had become quite short-tempered. Well, more so than usual, anyway.

"So, you are hiding something from me," Juunana-gou maintained.

"Didn't I say drop it!" Juuhachi-gou snarled, growing even more annoyed. With a growl, she stood up. "I'm tired of this place. Let's go, already." Not bothering to see if he was even going to follow her, Juuhachi-gou took off into the air. To be honest, in the mood she was in right now, she really didn't care if he did or not.

Juunana-gou remained where he was for a moment longer, glaring at his sister's dwindling form. He was starting to wonder if something was wrong with her programming. She's been acting quite unlike herself for a while now, and he didn't like it one bit. *I don't know exactly what you're hiding from me, Juuhachi-gou, but I will find out sooner or later.*

With that quiet vow, Juunana-gou took off after his sister, though he stayed at a careful distance behind her. Right now, he didn't really feel all too comfortable flying alongside her like they normally did. Their aimless trip was a silent one. Neither spoke a word to each other for quite some time, both too occupied with his or her own thoughts (and not to mention annoyed with one another).

*That brother of mine can be such a pest sometimes!* Juuhachi-gou thought peevishly. *He just wouldn't be able to understand what's going on in my head now. How could he possibly know what it feels like to almost killed your own child?*

That had been at the forefront of her mind ever since that momentous day.

Thanks to Gero wiping her memories away-or at least attempting to- while he was turning her into what she was today, she had completely forgotten she had once given birth to a son. But then he appears before her out of the blue that day, and once Gohan said his name, memories of him returned in a instant. Something that stuck out to her those flood of memories was telling Bulma that Vegeta was Koji's father.

Vegeta. Despite remembering her son, she had no memories at all of being with the Saiyajin Prince, not even vague ones. She knew nothing about Vegeta, except for the data on him that Gero had programmed into her. The day Vegeta confronted her and her brother, he had said something to her that she had found odd at the time-

"Y-You're behind all of this!...But why?"

During that time, Juuhachi-gou never really gave his words that much thought, but now it all made sense. Maybe she didn't remember him, he definitely remembered her. From her files on Vegeta, he was just someone she could never see herself getting involved with like lovers; even as a human. Looking back on the Prince, she guessed he was good looking in his own right, but he seemed too irritatingly cocky for her taste. She couldn't remember how she was like in her prior life, however, even still she just couldn't see them together like that. What was it that had drawn her former human self and the Saiyajin Prince to each other and make a child together?

*He sure has grown,* she thought with the hint of a smile, remembering her son's appearance after she hadn't seen him in years.

Then she shook her head and growled quietly in the back of her throat in frustration. She ferociously shoved down this foreign feeling of sentimentality down into the pit of her stomach. She wasn't used to feeling like this, and she didn't like it at all. At that moment, she really wished Gero had been successful in completely wiping out her humanity when he turned her into a cyborg. If he had, then she wouldn't be feeling this right now, or feeling anything period. She wouldn't have ever remembered Koji.

*This is that brat's fault!* she thought coldly angrily, her Jinzouningen side flowing stronger through her at the moment, shoving what humanity she had left in her to the side. *I might have to really end up killing him after all if he does this to me...*

Ever since the cyborgs' attack on West City, those who survived the assault that day had to travel to other towns or cities just to get food and other necessities. It was a miracle that as much devastation as the cyborgs have caused over the years that there were some civilization, besides West City, still standing, and with having a Saiyajin teenager to take care of, Bulma prayed to the higher beings out there that they could least keep it that way. In her opinion, they deserved it for all the suffering they have had to contend with everyday.

Bulma glanced over at Koji out the corner of her eye. He was watching the world go by as they drove, his arm propped up on the door and his face propped in his hand, wearing an expression on his face that mirrored his father's. Koji had always been such a quiet kid; but these days he had become a little more so, brooding even- more accurately, he's been pretty quiet ever since he found out about Juuhachi-gou a year ago. She knew it was still pretty hard for him to accept who his brith mother was. In spite of knowing about Juuhachi-gou, Koji had kept calling her mother and basically pretended that she had never told him the truth. But she always saw that pained expression on his face whenever they heard a broadcast on the radio about the Jinzouningen attacking yet another civilization.

Bulma scowled. If she had the strength to, she would kill Juuhachi-gou. It burned her up inside to think about how she's made her son's life a nightmare. How could she do this to him? How could she help kill her son's very own father? When she got no answers, it made her fumed even more.

She turned a right and steeled herself, as her and her Koji had to travel down a road past numerous rubble that had once been a thriving civilization. She tried to keep her eyes straight on the road and not pay it any mind, but she couldn't as she noticed Koji was gazing at the destruction and the tightening of the frown on his face.

"Don't look, son," she said gently.

Koji turned his blue stare towards her for a moment, then looked away.

The rest of the ride back home was very quiet.

When the two arrived home, both Bulma and Koji were in autopilot mode, as they stepped out of the car and began carrying the groceries inside the house. The two were almost finished when a very welcomed form touched down in front of them. The mood of the mother and son lifted nearly at once.

"Gohan!" "Gohan-san!"

"Ossu, you two," Gohan greeted cheerily.

Later that evening, both Koji and Bulma were in a much better state of mind, as the two them and Gohan enjoyed dinner.

"It really is nice that you can have dinner with us again, Gohan-kun," Bulma remarked, while filling a bowl up with rice till it was nearly overflowing. "We hardly get to see you anymore. It really does make me long for the good, old days. When Koji and I were heading towards the grocery store this morning, I was thinking about adventure on Nameksei, and boy had that been quite the adventure!" Bulma sat the bowl of rice down in front of Gohan. She smiled nostalgically, when Gohan's expression turned elated at the sight of food, just like his father's face used to lit up at the sight of food.

Gohan and Koji wasted no time in scarfing down their food. A minute later, Gohan extended out a empty bowl towards Bulma.

"More, please?" he asked politely.

Bulma giggled. "Yep. Like father, like son," she said, as she took the bowl to fix him seconds.

"You really think I'm like my father?" Gohan asked, looking a bit surprised at the comparison.

"Of course!" Bulma assured him. "I mean, it's the way you eat, and how you're very powerful yet at the same time you're so gentle. Not to mention that outfit you have on."

Gohan half-laughed as he looked down at himself and ran hand across the material of the orange shogi that had belonged to his late father.

"I suppose it's always been a dream of mine to be as powerful as my father had been," he confessed. "Yes, it inspires me to wear his colors."

"Well, I know Goku, and I know he'd be extremely proud to see what a strong, young man you've grown up to be," Bulma said. She sat down another bowl full of rice in front of Gohan.

Listening to Bulma mention Gohan's dead father made Koji think of his own. He would often lay in his bed at night wondering what kind of person his father had been. He had asked both Gohan and Bulma about him, and they both had told him that he had been a proud, powerful man, who was sometimes to arrogant for his own good. Although, Bulma had made up for it by admitting how she never thought Vegeta was too bad a guy. She could tell that deep down he wasn't a complete jerk and seemed kinda lonely.

That used to make him immediately believe that his birth mother must've been something special to have captured his imperious father's heart. However, now that he knew who she really was, that image he had formed of her had completely shattered. Unnoticeably, he shook his head, not wanting to think about the woman who had borne him at all.

"What about me?" Koji asked out of the blue.

Both Gohan and Bulma looked up at him. Koji stared back at them hopefully.

"What about me, Mother?" Koji asked. "Am I like my Father?"

His mother and master exchanged glances, then looked back to him, obviously surprised by his abrupt question.

"Are you like your father?" Bulma repeated the question, looking pensive. "Hmm..."

Koji found himself being stared fixedly at by his mother. He tried his best not to fidget.

"I've never thought about it too much, but...yeah, you're definitely your father's son," Bulma told him.

"That's for sure," Gohan agreed.

"You two mean it?" Koji asked hopefully.

The two nodded.

"For starters, you have the same air about you as he did," Gohan said. "And Vegeta-san's drive to become a strong as possible."

Bulma giggled a bit and added, "And not to mention the fact you've inherited that mean look on your face from him, too. I used to worry a lot about you for that, but thank goodness you didn't turn out looking like him! You're more handsome, in fact."

Koji blushed. He never even assumed it was possible that he could be handsome, though a part of him wondered if she just said that because she was his mother. More importantly, though, finding out that he and the dead father he never got to knew weren't that too much different from each other like he thought had really raised his spirits.

"Oh, by the way, Gohan, I've been hearing rumors that you've been fighting the cyborgs by yourself again," Bulma said. She smiled smugly when Gohan suddenly looked sheepish. "Is that really true?"

"Yeah," Gohan admitted.

Bulma sighed. "Look, I know I can't keep you from going to fight them, but please try to be careful. I don't want anything to happen to you."

"I've gotten so much stronger though, Bulma-san," Gohan said, looking serious. "Where once all I could do was just run away from the cyborgs, now I can fight them back fairly well!"

Bulma and Koji gasped in cadence.

"That's awesome, Gohan-san!" Koji praised.

Bulma gave the dark-haired hybrid warrior an evaluating look. "I can see it. You have toughen up a lot, haven't you?...Nonetheless, Gohan-san, there's still just one of you and two of them. Don't take any risks you don't have to."

"Okay," Gohan promised, nodding.

"Well, I'm sure you can do it, Gohan-san!" Koji said confidently.

Gohan smiled. "Thanks," he said, then reach over to playfully tousle Koji's hair.

"Hey!" Koji protested, while laughing at the same time.

Bulma quietly watched the scene with a smile. It was good to see Koji laughing again, something that Gohan could always get him to do. After dinner, Gohan had to take his leave and said his goodbyes, though not before promising Koji that he would be by tomorrow to pick him up for some training. Bulma and Koji waved goodbye to him as they watched him fly away.

"Bye, Gohan! Tell Chichi I said hi!" Bulma shouted after the disappearing warrior.

"See you tomorrow, Gohan-san!" Koji called.

Bulma beckoned Koji back inside the house, however, just as she turned-

"Mom, wait."

"Huh? Yes, son?" Bulma asked, turning back around to see what he wanted...

...and was surprised when Koji suddenly ran over and hugged her. He hadn't done that since he was a little kid. She hugged him back.

"Not that I'm not enjoying this, but what brought this on?" Bulma asked, sounding amused.

"It's just that...well, I wanted to say thanks," Koji replied.

Bulma looked at him blankly. "Thanks for what?"

"For everything," Koji said. "For taking care of me all these years, even though I'm not really your son. I know I was just dropped into your lap, and you could have even sent me to a orphanage or something, but you didn't, and for that I really thank you. Juuhachi-gou may have given me birth, but I'll always think of you more as my mother."

"Oh, Koji!" Bulma gushed; it took all her control to not start crying. She hugged him again and kissed him on the head. "You didn't need to thank me. I've enjoyed taking care of you all these years. And I don't care if we aren't related by blood, you are my son as far as I'm concerned."

As the sun made its westward trek towards the sky, sunlight swept across an all but forgotten city, dispersing the shadows and revealing nothing short of devastation. This was more of the Jinzouningen's handiwork. Out of the entire city, the only structure left intact was an old, slightly broken down manor. Once upon a time, this house had belonged to a man named Mark Satan; he had a daughter who lived there with him, Videl, and as well as many butlers and maids. He had been a renowned martial artist who hit it big at the triennial Tenkaichi Budokai when he won the championship title. Back then, the mansion had been beautiful and grand, always gleaming under the light of the sun. The lawn and rose bushes had always been neatly manicured, and the pool cleaned out every month. The double steel gates at the end of the driveway had stood strong and sturdy, with a camera attached to the very top of the gate to see who was coming and leaving at all times, and a nearby intercom hooked on the left side of the gate for visitors to announce their arrivals.

Life had been pretty good for the Satan family.

Then Juunana-gou and Juuhachi-gou appeared.

Unfortunately for the Satan family, the cyborgs had taken a surprising interest in their home, and the father and daughter and all their servants had been horribly evicted. Over the years, the beauty that the manor and the land it stood on once had faded away. The manor had lost its impressive luster, becoming dull and dusty; cracks decorated all the windows. The lawn was wild and thigh-high, with weeds snaking out to lay crisscross over the cracked walkway. The rose bushes had all but wilted and eventually died. The backyard was in similar fashion, and the once clear-blue water that filled the pool was now a dirty color and full of sludge from years of not being cleaned.

But in spite of how deplorable it looked, the manor wasn't as lifeless as one might think by taking a first glance at the manor. When they weren't wiping out every human they could get their hands on, it was this mansion that Juuhachi and Juunana came to- their new home.

Just now, one of the tenants could be seen staring out through one of the many windows on the top floor of the mansion. When you are an artificial human, one really didn't need to sleep or eat, but sleep is what Juuhachi-gou did last night. As she did, something she found startling happened: she dreamed. She didn't know why she was so surprised about that, as she knew she still had some of her old humanity left intact. Both her and Juunana-gou did. But what really startled her is what the dream had been about. In the dream, she was killing humans left to right, as usual, when suddenly, her son appeared in front of her as a baby, crying and calling out to her and reaching out for her. Then, not under her volition, her hand thrust out towards the child and started gathering energy. She tried to reabsorb the energy or pull her hand back, but someone else was in control. And then the blast hurtled forth and-

-she woke up. And she hadn't been back to sleep since then. She had got out of bed and went over to the window, and that's what she's been doing for the past few hours or so.

She didn't like what was happening to her. Feeling things like guilt and having nightmares- this wasn't supposed to be happening to her. She was a Jinzouningen; she was supposed to be a cold, ruthless, emotionless killing machine. And yet, she couldn't forget the way her heart seized with actual fear in the dream, when she tried to stop herself from firing the energy blast at her son, but was unable to.

Juuhachi shook her head and snarled exasperatedly in the back of her throat. All this started when she had that unexpected reunion with the son she had forgotten all about. It was starting to drive her insane. She felt like going out and destroying something. That always made her feel better whenever she was upset about something.

There was suddenly a knock on the door.

"May I come in?" asked her brother's dry voice.

"Don't you usually do, anyway," Juuhachi-gou retorted.

The door to her room opened, revealing a half-smirking Juunana-gou.

"I see you're till troubled by whatever it is you seem to be so set on keeping from me, your own brother," he said, his tone slightly accusing.

Juuhachi-gou opened her mouth to retort, though something entirely different came out of her mouth.

"Do you ever...do you ever have memories of the human you once were before Dr. Gero found us? Even faint impressions." Even before Juuhachi-gou glanced peripherally at her twin, she knew to expect a expression of surprise on his face.

Juunana blinked at his sister a few times. "Memories of when I was a human?" he repeated slowly. Then he snorted. "Of course not! Why waste my time reflecting on that insipid human I once was?" He frowned. "While I hated that old geezer for what he did, at the same time I'm grateful. Humans are weak, fragile creatures who die of old age and disease. As Cyborgs, we don't have to worry about such idiocy! We don't ever have to worry about dying at all! We've become the new Gods of this world, and no one can stop us!"

Juuhachi-gou had quietly watched her brother during his whole speech. Due to how big his ego is, she had expected such a response from her brother. She had to admit he made some valid points about their advantages as Jinzouningen. Still, that was so easy for him to say that. He didn't have the same worries as she did.

"Don't tell me that's why you've been acting like you have lately," Juunana-gou said.

"Was there something you wanted?" Juuhachi-gou asked, a note of impatience in her voice.

Juunana-gou scowled at his sister for clearly evading his question. He decided to let the matter drop, for now.

"Yeah, get this: some humans have gotten brave enough to open up a new theme park not too far away from here. It's called Super World."

"Are you serious?" Juuhachi-gou asked in disbelief, turning around to face her twin. "I can't believe that the humans would be this stupid. They're practically begging to die."

"I'm heading over there," Juunana-gou announced. "You coming along?"

Juuhachi-gou remained quiet for a long time, apparently thinking it over. With her current temperament, she really could use a good distraction. For the first time in a long while, she truly looked like old self as a malicious smile twisted her lips.

"Yes, let's go to Super World," Juuhachi-gou said. "Now that I think about it, I really could go for playing with the humans today."

Juunana-gou grinned. "I just knew you would."

When the Jinzouningen appeared at Super World, the two made their presence known at once; a rare day of fun at an amusement park was instantly transmuted into yet another day of terror. The Cyborgs took over Super World in no time, killing the attendants and the Town Militia that had been set up to protect the amusement park. Normally, the twins would raze their targets down to rubble, but at the moment the two just simply wanted to have fun on the rides like any other person.

And then Son Gohan and Koji alighted before them.

Juuhachi-gou and Juunana-gou immediately looked up (in Juunana-gou's case, looked around), when they heard soft thumps. Neither were surprised to see that it was Son Gohan, however, when she instantly saw Koji standing alongside him, glaring death at both her and her brother (though at her in particular) Juuhachi-gou's pale brows rose questioningly.

*Does he sense who I am?* she wondered.

"My, my. Look what the wind blew in," Juunana-gou remarked sneeringly. He broke out into an evil grin. "So how long as it been, Son Gohan? A year? Well, anyway, this time, you or your little friend won't be getting away." Looking back at his sister, he added, "Will they, Juuhachi?"

Juuhachi-gou briefly looked at her brother, and threw a secret glance at her son, before looking back at Juunana-gou again. She shrugged.

"I could care less," she said indifferently. "Do whatever you want to them." She then started up the merry-go-round again and the unicorns started moving with life, carrying her around the carousel.

Turning towards Koji, Gohan earnestly said, "Stay back, Koji."

Koji nodded and backed away. Meanwhile, both Gohan and Juunana-gou drew back into fighting stances. Energy exploded out of the ground between the two. The fight was on.

Over on the merry-go-round, Juuhachi-gou tried to tune out the sounds of fighting on behind her. She tried to ignore that her son had come with Gohan again, though clearly hearing him urging his friend on to victory sure didn't help things. But then she heard a particularly nasty crash behind her and couldn't help but to look back out the corner of her eye. *I wonder how Juunana-gou's doing?*

Juunana-gou wasn't doing as great against Gohan today. Juunana had started out fine, even when Gohan had transformed. However, the tide of the battle took an abrupt turn as Gohan managed to slip through his defenses and strike him in the jaw with a hard punch, and it's been all Gohan ever since then. With a hard front kick, Juunana-gou went sprawling backwards through the air, his head hitting a metal gate, causing him to briefly bounce higher into the air before he started to plummet towards the ground again. Gohan rushed after Juunana-gou to maintain his advantage over him-

-then Juuhachi-gou appeared out of nowhere and surprised him with a palm strike to the face. Gohan went slamming into the glass window of a empty cafe, cracking it before he slid off and hit the ground. Gohan cried out, as the glass from the window fell down on him in a vicious deluge, slicing his clothes and skin.

"Gohan-san!" Koji exclaimed worriedly.

"Man, he's definitely improved since last time," Juunana-gou remarked as he rose back up into the air behind his sister. He took the back of his hand and wiped away a thin trail of blood off his mouth. Juunana-gou stared down at the blood on his sleeve and shook visibly in rage. That settled it; Gohan's shelf life had definitely just run out.

"Let's take him out together," Juuhachi-gou suggested.

"Sure!" Juunana-gou agreed.

"Go!" Juuhachi-gou said.

The twins then moved into action. Koji gasped and gaped in horror as the cyborgs charged at Gohan, moving in flawless coordination. Juuhachi-gou struck first with a chop block to Gohan's left leg. Juunana-gou followed up with a hard knee to Gohan's midsection, and his sister did more damage by hitting Gohan in the face with the back of her fist.

"Gohan-san!" Koji screamed, charging. He wasn't about to let them kill Gohan as well!

"Hm?" Juuhachi-gou noticed her son approaching. Reflexively, she clasped both her hands together over her head, gathered ki and fired a large ki blast. Seeing the blast approaching, Koji quickly leaped backwards, and the beam struck the space he stood in just a few seconds ago. Koji immediately moved back into action, aiming straight towards his birth mother. Juuhachi-gou backflipped away, drawing Koji away from Gohan and Juuhachi-gou to the very top of one of the rides. The two stared each other down.

"Kid, you better get out of here while you still can," Juuhachi-gou warned, her voice neutral.

Koji's eyes briefly widened, a bit surprised that she would say that to him. Then he glowered at her ferociously as he remembered all the horrible things she had done and was trying to do to his only friend.

"Why would you care what happens to me, Mom?" he spat venomously.

Juuhachi-gou's expression twisted in surprise. "So, you know about me?"

"Yes, and I wish I didn't!" Koji said wrathfully, his fists clenching. "I hate you! I hate the fact that I was born from you! I'll never forgive you for killing father, and I won't let you kill Gohan-san either!"

There was nothing left to be said. Koji lunged across the gap between him and the Jinzouningen, striking away. Juuhachi-gou deflected each strike, not really putting forth any effort. While her Jinzouningen half was telling her to kill him already, the part of her that was still human- his mother- held back from doing so, leaving her conflicted.

Distracted by these contrasting feelings, Koji managed to get in a knee to her stomach. Juuhachi-gou's eyes widened, embarrassed that she had let someone who should never be able to touch her land a blow. At that instant, her Jinzouningen nature flowed through her stronger than ever. Glaring down at the boy in rage, she returned the favor with a hard haymaker to the side of his face. Koji was about to fall backwards but Juuhachi-gou caught him by the collar, keeping him hoisted in the air. Raising her free hand, Juuhachi-gou gathered ki, energy swirling into a globe.

Below, Gohan saw a glow in the sky out the corner of his eye and turned to see what it was. He blanched, gasping in horror.

"Koji!"

Koji glared back at his mother defiantly. "Go ahead. Kill me...like you did father! You monster!"

Juuhachi-gou wanted to. She really wanted to throw the ki blast. She really wanted to. Then-

She stared down at her newborn son with so much love in her eyes, fondly caressing his soft, bright hair as she slept away in her arms. Through all the pain, misery, and every other horrible thing she's endured during her life, giving birth to him was undoubtedly the happiest moment of her life. He was the silver lining in her dark cloud. He was proof that her humanity hadn't been taken completely away from her...Her Koji...

Both Gohan and Juunana-gou had noticed how Juuhachi-gou had frozen up again, as she held Koji in one hand and the instrument of his destruction in the other one. Acting fast, Gohan flew upwards towards the pair and kicked the blond Jinzouningen away from Koji. However, before he could grab his pupil, Juunana-gou fired an energy bolt at Koji, eliciting a groan of pain from the young teenager as the blast hit home. He began to fall listlessly backwards through the air.

"Koji!" Gohan quickly rushed over to catch the other half-Saiyajin.

Turning toward Juuhachi-gou, Juunana shouted, "Juuhachi-gou! Wake up already!"

That snapped her awake. Without really thinking about how Gohan was suddenly holding Koji when she had just had him a few seconds ago, Juuhachi-gou threw the same ki blast she had intended to kill Koji with in the first place at them both. Quickly, Gohan protectively turned them around so that the blast could hit him instead of Koji.

Juunana-gou joined his sister in the air, firing volley after volley of ki blasts. On the ground, Gohan ran with the unconscious Koji towards some place safe, while trying to avoid the energy bolts at the same time. He eventually found a chunk of wall and quickly dove behind it. Laughing sadistically, Juunana-gou raised both hands and tossed two particularly enormous beams down on the amusement park, a huge explosion coming to life an instant later, expanding outward to engulf other parts of the city. Juuhachi-gou observed it all with an opaque mien, her hair fluttering wildly as they were trapped in the air currents of the concussion.

For a long time, it sounded as if the planet itself was about to tear apart. Then things slowly, very slowly stilled, thick, bleak silence following. Beneath them, as the smoke finally cleared, the amusement park and most of the city itself had been completely demolished.

Juunana-gou laughed sadistically. "Ha! I definitely get bonus points for that!"

His sister said nothing, but he didn't notice.

"Come on. That definitely finished Wonder Boy and that brat," Juunana-gou said. "Let's go play with some of the other humans."

Without so much a word, Juuhachi-gou turned and followed her brother as he soared away in search of more quarry. Though Juuhachi-gou did glance back down at the rubble that had once been Super World before she could no longer see it again.

Shortly after they left, one of the piles of rubble started to shift and Gohan crawled out of it. He was in horrible condition. Unfortunately, when the Jinzouningen had been firing away trying to find him and Koji, more than one blast had caught him on his left arm and severed it off completely. He immediately started to search for Koji's whereabouts. He found him a few feet away, unconscious and half-buried underneath rubble.

"Ko...ji..." Gohan grunted out. He started to crawl towards him, something that wasn't easy to do with only one arm. "Don't die on me, kid. You just can't."

Gohan reached inside his sash and pulled out a familiar, small brown sack. He used his one hand to reach inside and pulled out the remaining senzou bean.

"Would you look at that? Only one left, just like I have only one arm left," he said, somehow managing to joke in spite of his condition. "Now what will I do?"

Gohan didn't think too long. He reached over and pushed the bean into Koji's mouth.

"Stay...alive..." Gohan said, before his eyes rolled into the back of his head and he blacked out.

In the darkness of her lab, Bulma sat at her computer, brows furrowed in intense concentration as her fingers moved with swift adeptness across the keys. Then she hit a wrong key and had to backspace. She swore softly in irritation. It was the sixth time she had messed up and had to backtrack. She just couldn't seem to think straight. She just had too much on her mind, especially ever since what had happened several days ago-

Bulma sat at her computer hard at work on a top-secret project; had it not been for the light of her computer monitor, she would have been sitting in complete darkness, but she paid very little attention to that. Her mind was focused mainly on what she doing. Displayed on the screen was a blueprint, and on the blueprint was the image of a new aircraft she had started working on a while ago when an idea had suddenly hit her. When it had came to her, she had felt like such an idiot for not thinking of it sooner. Everything was still in the planning stages, and while she wasn't completely sure that her project would really work or not, she was going to try to the best of her abilities to make it work. She just had to. This project could very well be her and everyone else's last hope against the Jinzouningen.

She suddenly heard footsteps approaching from behind, and quickly looked around to see who it was. Bulma was relieved to see Koji step out of the shadows, however, her heart sank into her shoes at once when she saw him carrying an unconscious Gohan in on his back. Immediately, she noticed that Gohan's left arm was missing, and her face turned very pale.

"Oh, no! Gohan," she cried in horrified shock, quickly rising out of her chair and running over to them. "What happened to his arm?"

"Long story short, we were beat up pretty bad," Koji explained succinctly.

"Quickly, get him to a bed!" Bulma ordered urgently. As Koji went to do that, Bulma turned back to the computer to save her work, turned it off, and ran out of the room...

Bulma sighed as she sat back in her chair, trying to keep her emotions under control. This was just too much. Gohan had been the only fighter left on Earth that could at least keep the Jinzouningen at bay for a while, but now he's lost an arm. From what Gohan had told her of his battles with the cyborgs prior to the horrible incident, he couldn't even put a dent in them. There was definitely no way Gohan could beat them now that he only had one arm to fight with. If he tried to...the outcome she predicted from that scenario made a chill crawl down her spine.

With his Saiyajin genes, Gohan had recovered four days later, and in spite now having only one arm, he had taken it in stride- another trait, she knew, that he had inherited from his father. While he told her he felt better and that he could still fight the Jinzouningen, Bulma had adamantly told him he would do no such thing and called him crazy for even thinking he could go fight those mechanical fiends with just one arm while they still had both of theirs.

Bulma had suggested to Gohan that he stay at Capsule Corporation for a while, at least until she could find some way to gently explain things to his mother for him, because she knew it would be a horrible shock to Chichi if she him walking into the house with only one arm. While Gohan slept, she had called Chichi and told her that Gohan was there, safe, and currently asleep.

Poor Chichi, she had never been the same since Goku had died, and Bulma just knew she worried herself sick over Gohan whenever he was away from home for days on end, knowing that he was trying to fight the Jinzouningen on his own. That made her realize how foolish and incredibly stupid she herself had been for allowing Koji to go out into battle with him. What was she thinking allowing him to go off with Gohan to fight the cyborgs? She had to be out of her mind to agreeing to something so stupid. The next time she saw him today, she was going to tell Koji she forbid him to try and face the Jinzouningen, whether he liked it or not.

Bulma suddenly decided to go check in on Gohan. Saving her work and turning the monitor off, she headed towards the medic room. Ever since that day, Koji had been sitting by Gohan side at all time, feeling personally responsible for his friend's condition, though Gohan had assured him many times that it wasn't his fault. Bulma had finally reached the door.

"Okay, you guys, I'm coming in," she announced. "Hey, are you two-" Bulma trailed off in her words immediately, when she opened the door and found the room completely empty. The window, however, was noticeably wide open. Bulma could only stare in bafflement for a long time. Then her face twisted in a scowl and she growled in exasperation.

"Damn those two!"

Miles away from West City, the missing two half-Saiyajin sat leisurely atop of a precipice; the slanting shadows of the clouds drifted over them, providing them some brief shade in the hot sun. Well, rather, Gohan was the one being leisure, laying across the surface of the cliff, his only arm pillowed underneath his head. While a mere couple of inches away, Koji sat at the edge of the cliff, still radiating self-loathing and frustration from another failed try at trying to become a Super Saiyajin.

"Hey, take your mind off trying to become a Super Saiyajin for a while and relax," Gohan suggested.

"But I can't," Koji replied, glaring down at the several feet below him. "I got so close today! I thought I was really going to transform, but then nothing. I'm so pathetic! Why does it keep going wrong every time? Can't you tell me why, Gohan? I just don't know how to do it."

"Don't say that," Gohan told him gently. "You can do it, Koji, just like I could. It's as I told you the other day, the right elements have to be involved for the transformation to take place, and all that rage you feel inside, don't let it control you, you take control of it." Gohan's face hardened as he turned his gaze skyward. "For me, it had been real easy. All I had to do was think about how the Jinzouningen killed Piccolo-san and Kuririn-san and everyone else, then I felt a intense burning sensation within me that turned from pain to rage. It's maddening, and I don't ever want something like that to happen again, something so unfair. They didn't deserve to die like they did, none of the people the Jinzouningen killed deserved to die like that. And then the dam broke."

Koji had hung onto every world Gohan had just told him. *Don't let my rage control me, take control of it...*

Aloud he said, "Gohan-san, do you want to know why I train so hard with you?"

"Hm?" Gohan replied, all ears.

"Well..." Koji hesitated, blushing slightly. Normally, he was a person liked to keep his private feelings to himself; in this day and age, most people were like that. But then he remembered it was just Gohan- the person he trusted the most in the world next to his mother. In fact, in some aspects, he trusted even more than her. "You how I've never seen a picture of my father's face before, right? You might find this weird, but you see I have this image of father in my mind, but he's always so far away that I still can't see him. So I think that I can manage to catch up to my father and finally see his face, then surely I would be able to defeat the Jinzouningen. But instead of me catching up to him, it always seem like my father is rapidly leaving me behind."

Looking around, Koji his mentor watching him, and then he turned away, chagrined.

"I knew it. You think I'm crazy."

Gohan shook his head. "Don't worry, you have Vegeta-san's blood," Gohan told him, smiling encouragingly. Koji looked back at him in surprise. "You'll soon be able to become a Super Saiyajin, absolutely!"

*That's right!* Koji realized. *As long as I have my father's blood in me, I should be able to become a Super Saiyajin, too. I just have to train harder!*

"But I really understand how you feel..."

"Eh?" Koji replied, looking up at his sensei curiously. He found Gohan looking pensively down at his shogi.

"I made this shogi thinking...that if I could be come as strong as my father..." Gohan said. "Then I could beat the Jinzouningen for sure."

"Son...Goku-san, right?" Koji asked, nodding. "Mother tells me that it always surprises her how when you wear that shogi you look just like Goku-san."

Gohan sighed. "Looking like my father isn't the problem. But I guess there's no way I would be just like him in power." He then started to laugh...but there was no humor in it at all, nor in his eyes, which was why Koji tossed him a look of pity.

*Gohan-san...* he thought sympathetically.

In the next moment, a thunderous roar proceeded a terrific flash of light that enveloped the area. Quickly, the two warriors got to the edge to take a look, already knowing what they were going to find. Smoke was issuing from the city below, and they could clearly hear the screams of terror coming from the citizens. Then, right in front of their eyes, another explosion went off.

The Jinzouningen were at it again.

"Oh, no! The city!" Koji cried.

"Da-damn it..." Gohan growled, clenching his fist. "I-I won't let them get away with this any longer!"

Thinking of the Jinzouningen attacking those helpless people down below, Gohan summoned up his ki and transformed. He turned to his young pupil.

"Koji, you stay here, all right!"

"No! I'm going if you are, Gohan!" Koji argued instantly. "I've gotten a lot stronger too! Didn't you just tell me that I had improved a lot? Besides, with your injury, who knows what will happen if those two gang up on you this time! And you know how personal this is for me! Please, Gohan, let me help you."

Gohan stared down at the younger teen for a long time, and Koji met his gaze back with a steely glint in his. Suddenly, Gohan's expression softened and he smiled good-naturedly.

"All right, Koji, you win," he relented. "Let's go down there and stop them once and for all!"

"Yosh!" Koji cheered.

Smiling in fierce determination, Koji turned back towards the direction the Jinzouningen were attacking, geared up to go into battle. Then Gohan chopped him across the back of his neck with his remaining hand. The teenager's eyes widened as the blow made contact, his eyes rolled into the back of his head as he started to fall over. Before he could hit the ground, Gohan quickly caught him by the back of his shirt, gently laying him down.

"Forgive me, but this is for your own good...And for the good of the planet as well," he murmured, staring down at the unmoving young warrior. "If you died, then there wouldn't be anymore warriors left to save the Earth. You're the last warrior with the potential to be capable of defeating those cyborgs after a few years...Koji, you are the last hope."

The area abruptly shook again. Gohan immediately glanced toward city again, grimacing at the sight of another explosion afterimage.

"I'm off now, Koji," he said with a grim note of finality in his voice. Looking down at Koji again, a sad smile touched his lips. "Wish me luck, my little brother."

With no words left to say, the one-armed Gohan braced himself and flew off into battle again.

Koji's eyes opened again some time later, awakened by something he couldn't describe, like a feeling of extreme urgency. For a brief moment, he wondered why he was lying down, but then he remembered feeling a hand coming down hard on his neck, followed by a voice that sounded exactly like Gohan's telling him-

"Gohan?" he screamed, immediately realizing that Gohan wasn't on the cliff with him anymore. That quickly propelled him back to his feet. He vaguely noticed that the sky had turned a dark gunmetal gray while he had been out, as he instantly looked down towards the city, knowing that's where Gohan had went. His eyes widened when he saw the once burning city eerily silent, streams of smoke still issuing from it. "Oh, no! Gohan, why didn't you let me go with you?"

He immediately flew down in search of Gohan. As he did, the rain had started up again, but Koji ignored it. Finding Gohan was much more important to him. He reached the city in no time, and searched high and low for his friend. He called out to him several times, but he saw nothing nor heard anything. All this stillness and no sign of Gohan was started to make the chilling feeling in the pit of his stomach grow even more, and a forbidding thought slowly started to creep inside his mind; however, he angrily shoved it away.

Gohan was just fine. He would find him, and they would both head back to his house where he knew his Bulma-kaasan was waiting to severely lambaste them both for sneaking out to train. Yeah, that was going to happen-

That line of thought abruptly stopped, when Koji looked down into the middle of the street. He gasped. He had finally found Gohan; his mentor was lying face down in a puddle, unmoving. That feeling of dread Koji had started to feel seconds go came back tenfold.

"Gohan!"

He touched down a few feet away. Koji felt as if he was moving through mud as he slowly walked towards Gohan. The rain was also coming down harder.

"No, no, no, no, no, no..." Koji muttered in denial, not wanting to believe what his brain was telling him. But...but..."Oh, no, Gohan."

Tears started to stream down his face, mixing with the rainwater, as cold realization gradually started to sink in. He tried his best to ignore it, but he wasn't able to. Gohan was dead. Gohan, his only friend, his master, his big brother...was dead.

"Why? Why did you have to do this, Gohan?" he demanded quietly. "Why did you have to leave me? It's not fair, you didn't deserve this!"

He had finally drew up beside Gohan, staring down at quiet horror as he could see his friend's final expression of agony in the puddle. In doing so, he found himself remembering hearing a part of what Gohan had said to him before he completely blacked out.

"Koji, you are the last hope..."

"Why did this have to happen?" he asked no one in particular. "You were my only friend- my brother! You meant the world to me... This just isn't fair." Bending down, he turned Gohan over and shook him in a final vain attempt to wake him up. Gohan remained unresponsive. He cried in racking sobs as he hugged Gohan, finally accepting the cold hard reality. "Gohan-san..."

*My mother and uncle have taken someone else I care about from me.*

The rain fell down even harder, lightning roaring and flashing in the dark sky overhead. Gently, Koji placed Gohan back down on the ground, using his right hand to close his eyes. Standing, he closed his own as a maddening heat set his chest aflame, then every other part of him. His whole body started to shiver and it had nothing at all to do with the cold rain. The heat within him started to build and build and build and build, until he exploded, screaming his rage to world for the death of his best friend.

"It wasn't fair! It wasn't fair! It wasn't fair!" he screamed repeatedly.

At last, something broke within him and all his rage poured out. Whatever inner inhibition he had before was gone; he held nothing back. His pupils momentarily disappeared and eyes glowed pure white. Gold flames exploded out of his body, his blue eyes turning blue-green, and his red hair rising off his head and stiffening into yellow-white spikes. The whole city shook from the birth of a new Super Saiyajin, and Koji dropped to his knees and banged his fists into the ground over and over at the unfairness of it all.

The bizarre lightning lit up the sky outside Capsule Corporation, and Bulma watched it bleakly from the kitchen window.

"It sure is pouring down out there," she murmured. "I hope Koji-chan and Gohan-kun make it back soon."

While she had calmed down after her son and Gohan left the way they did, she still planned to give the both of them a big piece of her mind whenever they got back. She had been left so agitated, and worried about the dreadful chance they might run into the cyborgs, that she wasn't able to focus on her mind on working on the time machine.

A little later on, Bulma stepped out of the kitchen and into the hallway-

Then she screamed and jumped when she found Koji already standing in the hallway.

"Koji!" she exclaimed, holding a hand to her chest, as her heart was still hammering from that scare. "What are you doing sneaking around for!? Next time, warn an old woman you're here! You really startled me-Koji?" Bulma's flow of chatter broke off, when she finally noticed her son's appearance and how different it was since she saw him last. She stared in wonder. "Koji! You're a Super Saiyajin! That's great!"

Koji didn't respond; he kept staring downward at the floor, his eyes too dark to see.

Bulma looked up, as she noticed a certain someone was missing.

"Where is Gohan?" she asked, scowling down at her son. "And by the way, the next time you two sneak away, how about letting me know!"

"He's not coming back," Koji said, his eyes still fixated on the floor. His voice had been so low that Bulma almost didn't hear him.

"Huh? Did he go back home?" Bulma asked; Koji shook his head. "Then where is he then?-Ah! Don't tell me he's gone off to challenge the Jinzouningen in his condition! That idiot; that stubborn-"

"No, not that...they got him..."

"What was that? I didn't understand you just then."

"I said...Gohan-san's dead!" Koji blurted, raising his head. For the first time since he got home, his eyes could be seen; tears were spilling down his face again.

Bulma definitely heard him clearly that time. She was silent for a long time. Then, slowly, she asked, "D-Dead?"

Koji nodded. "The Jinzouningen had attacked again, and Gohan went down to face them alone…and...they killed him!"

Bulma stood frozen in place as if she had just been turned into a statue, unable to comprehend what she had just heard. Then, her own eyes started burning and she began to cry as well. She stepped forward to embrace Koji and he hugged her back, and for a long time the two stood in the middle of the hall, crying together over the loss of another loved one.

To Be Continued